I went through a bad period where my face was full of cysts. Now the cysts are gone but I am left with a face ABSOLUTELY FULL of shallow scars (combined makes my face look hideous) and red/brown marks (hyperpigmentation?).

I've been using Differin nightly for the past 4 months to help control my acne, but I'm looking for help on exfoliating my skin. I've looked into AHA lotions and AHA face washes. Have people used Differin and AHA simultaneously in their regimen? If so, how do you use both?

altho...I wouldnt be too hopeful on this combination to treat ur scars/pigmentation...., if your pigmentation is mild sure....give it some time (lots of months)...but other than that, you are gonna need another "plan of attack"

If you dont want to change things up, then do the AHA in the morning and be patient (and use physical suncreen)

If you are okay with, replace the differin with retin-a gel.(0.025 strength) (there is also 0.01 strenght but i believe ppl can start with 0.025 nighlty right the way...dont get scared about the initial stinging...or itchininess)...but anyway..up to you to decide on which strength....either way...use suncreeen (I wish I had known better back when I first use retin-a.....never used sunscreen for over a year)....once you built up "tolerance" you can try adding the aha in the morning...(one step at a time).

OR

keep your current regime, but perform peels every so often (this are high concentration peels using different kinds of aha's...if you can afford it, i would go to one of those "beauty places" where proffesionals can do it for you. maybe you should go once...they can advice you which is better for you, and then you can do them urself). how often..again depends...but its around once every 1-3 months.

I myself will do this once I know I can go without retin-a for a while. (I need to be off a couple of days before, and at least a week after).

In case of differin...since its so much milder...im sure its less....but do a search on the implications and recommended off times given your use of differin.

Again....and I cannot be more emphatic....use sunscreen...no matter what.....even more so when you apply all this things. Sun will make those red-marks last much much much longer.

note: do not limit yourself to glycolic aha..there are other aha's...ppl respond better to others. see what works for you.

ALSO:

you can help yourself by drinking lots water, having vitamin a, e, c and b complex. If you get them naturally by having lots of veggies great. If not, use supplements. Look into "green smoothies".

If you are a girl, having this for breakfast will be AWESOME. If a guy, you will notice you will lose some weight, so make sure you add some calories. I have them with half an avocado (high in healthy vegetable fats), and one boiled egg as well (again....just purely to add some more calories, in the form of proteins).

But yeah...keep those vitamins in mind...they are great for skin (and thus skin dealing with pigmentation). Think of this as a healthy life style.

For scars:

If they are not too shallow....the above retin-a recommendation will help you a bit over time,,,(think of one year)....

In any other case....you really have to look at other more advanced and expensive things....do a search for this but to give you an example think of laser treatments, dermabrasion, microdermabrasion.

All of these have some downtime implications (some more than others)...so see if you can afford that time. I'm not too knowledgeable on these...but from the little i remember I would specially look at the microdermabrasion...since it's a much much lower risk (you never know how these things will go!)....I will definetly try that one once I know I no longer break out.